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Programs help homeless brush themselves off, move on

An artistic approach to curbing homelessness

By Jason PohlThe Denver Post

Posted:
12/27/2012 12:01:00 AM MST

Updated:
12/27/2012 08:51:22 AM MST

Glen Carney works on a painting in the community room at RedLine Gallery, 2350 Arapahoe St., in Denver. Every Tuesday, the community room — located in the back of the sprawling gallery — transforms into Reach Studio, a creative melting pot of homeless and transient people painting, some for the first time. The gallery is headed by PJ D'Amico, a former shelter worker. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)

Glenn McCoy says when he was living out of a grungy metro-area motel, and making admittedly poor choices, he was stuck on the fringes of society. "It wasn't good," he said with a fleeting smile. "I was always getting in trouble. I was always turning the wrong way or making wrong decisions."

Then, two years ago, he joined Creativity Hour — a Colorado Coalition for the Homeless program that provides art supplies, community support and guidance in weekly, semi-structured art therapy sessions — and changed his life, one stitch at a time.

For seven years, therapy leader April Rodgers has worked with people like McCoy, 47, who are on the verge of being lost. Each week she leads about a dozen participants through painting lessons, beading classes and other crafts, instilling in the process a sense of self-worth. She is a case manager and resource for these homeless people, and also an art therapist leading a creative approach to complex problems.

McCoy's relationship with Rodgers was rocky when he entered the program, and he often gave up when things didn't immediately work out. But as Rodgers introduced him to quilting, he learned that mistakes are made and corrected, both in art and in life.

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"I found I'm a good person," he said. "I have a heart. There's problems I can solve instead of asking other people to. It's really great."

McCoy and Rodgers, now friends, feed on each other's creativity.

Others in the group seek his advice. He's in supportive housing and is rebuilding his life.

"This is not the same man he was two years ago," Rodgers said. "No matter what happens now, he can handle it."

McCoy saw the change in himself — and he wishes more people could be given a similar chance.

Sculptor Barry Rose and Caroline Pooler talk about her watercolor works of art, spread out on the floor at RedLine Gallery. Hanging on the wall is an image of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)

"Don't give up on them," he said of others who are struggling. "They have a chance."

According to the 2012 point-in-time survey, the metropolitan area alone has more than 12,000 homeless men, women and children, and that number soars when figures from Colorado Springs and Fort Collins are included.

More than 90 percent of the homeless are classified as episodically homeless — couch surfing and at the brink of losing it all.

McCoy was one of those people.

Formal, more traditional therapy programs for homeless people exist, but they are expensive.

Formal programs

Guitar chords echoed through the empty halls of the Coalition's Renaissance at Civic Center at the corner of East 16th Avenue and Lincoln Street.

Occasionally someone will sing, but not so much that night. One of the band members didn't show up, causing many in Creativity Hour to wonder whether he just got tied up on the job hunt or something terrible had happened.

And yet, the creativity went on.

Across the room, one woman painted. Another sewed. Earlier, an enormous black beading bin was the center of attention as people crafted jewelry. But the eight participants are doing more than passing time — they're slowly turning their life around, one skill at a time.

Studies empirically confirming that art therapy benefits the homeless community are difficult to come by, but a growing body of community programs nationally seems to signal success. Studies published in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association indicate that art therapy — a practice started in the 1970s — is at least as successful as traditional therapy.

But it all depends on how you define success.

Rodgers said it's about keeping people in supportive housing, off the streets.

McCoy said it's about staying out of trouble.

Art Therapy Association of Colorado president Erin Brumleve
said no matter how you define it, anything that breaks the mold of substance abuse and street survival can yield incredible results.

"Artmaking is sort of this way of using your brain for that development of neuro-plasticity, by taking a little risk," she said. "Maybe that will transfer outside."

Although official programs such as Creative Hour are rare, they are gaining some traction in the Denver area. More casual art-therapy programs also have sprung up across the Front Range, but there aren't nearly enough creative outlets for everyone, leaders say.

"When you start getting people's creative juices going, then they start making creative solutions to other problems," Rodgers said. "They just need a place to start from, and usually people have not had that. That's how they got into such a mess."

Art as expression

When Barbara Jensen, a case manager at the Sister Mary Alice Murphy Center for Hope in Fort Collins, first envisioned a show highlighting work done by the city's most destitute, she didn't think it would fill every wall in the center. She just thought it would be a good way to get homeless people talking.

"I think (art) is a form of expression just like a language like English, like Spanish, like French," she said. "For a lot of the artists I'm working with, art is potentially their first language. They're in this world, and they're trying to communicate.

"I can understand what they're saying. The whole group can understand what they're saying," she said. "They feel heard."

Jensen, who also is an artist, has seen firsthand how creativity can get people talking about tough situations such as substance abuse, incarceration and death.

A series of photographs by an artist who goes by the name Reliquary documented the landscape of the Poudre River, a common destination for the region's transient community.

A workplace injury left the 54-year-old — who was already living in his van
— unemployed, desperate to express his whirlwind of emotions.

Reliquary took up photography as a substitute for his previous passion of music and recording — remnants of an earlier life.

"It keeps me kind of centered," he said. "You long for people to talk to; you long for people to connect with. This definitely helps (me) stay connected."

Reliquary has several certifications and degrees — ranging from music to computers — but he says the job market has run away from him.

The art program at the Murphy center gives him hope.

"People are not disposable," he said. "Everybody has some value."

In Denver, PJ D'Amico heads the RedLine art gallery at the intersection of 24th and Arapahoe streets — prime territory for transients and homeless shelters.

Every Tuesday, the community room in the back of the sprawling gallery transforms into Reach Studio, a creative melting pot of people painting, some for the first time.

The art is stunning — some is abstract, some is representational. It will be displayed Jan. 4-27.

In the studio, people find self-worth despite the challenges they face, D'Amico said.

"This is a program that takes people who are, by definition, broken and gives them a chance to be whole," D'Amico said. "I think part of this is just having everyone belong."

A former shelter worker, D'Amico said he recognized that anything that gives folks even the tiniest amount of value or chance to express themselves could ignite a dramatic turnaround.

"Once you really tend to people's essential identity and their self-reliance and their sense of belonging, then they can actually cycle out of the symptoms, which are hunger, addiction and so forth," he said. "My hunch is that part of this is to sort of rehumanize a whole community whose stories we rather not know."

Far too few

Despite encouraging anecdotal results, art-therapy programs for the homeless are few and far between.

But as programs such as Jensen's makeshift show in Fort Collins demonstrate, something as simple as a creative opportunity, no matter how small, can make a difference for people in the margins.

"As a homeless person, it's important to stay positive — to keep looking at possibilities," said Reliquary, the Fort Collins photographer. "That's the only way you're going to find them. People are generally not going to encourage that.

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